Free agency has officially begun in the National Hockey League, and the Colorado Avalanche have taken care of one of their in-house free agents. the team announced that Parker Kelly will return on a fresh four-year extension worth a whopping $1.7 million. (Yes, “whopping” was sarcastic).
Prior to the extension, Kelly was set to make $825k on a deal that was going to expire at the end of next season. While free agency is underway, they decided to get Kelly in the news.
Kelly played in 80 regular season games last season for the Avalanche. He recorded eight goals and 11 assists while also leading the team in hits with 161. That’s primarily his biggest highlight with the Avalanche so far, and that’s not at all taking anything away from him. I’m a huge fan of players who are physical and can make a contribution outside of scoring. Each player has a role, and it doesn’t always have to result in the buzzer going off.
It’s a little bit surprising that the team extended him for another four years, but they obviously like his game enough to keep him around. However, if it turns out that he, at some point, regresses, his contract would not be an issue in terms of moving off of it. Ultimately, the move was a low-risk one, and that’s not surprising.
Depending on the movement across the team during the free agency process, perhaps the team might want to expect Kelly to have a bigger role going forward. Or, they love what he’s already shown and won’t ask him to do much more than that.
The Avalanche have $5.85 million in cap space right now. The extension for Kelly doesn’t kick in until next offseason, so it had nothing to do on this year’s cap situation. We’ll update readers throughout the day about moves that are happening or big rumours floating around.